Sleep and Its Derangements

by William A. Hammond

During the alarm excited in Edinburgh by the apprehension of a French invasion almost every man was a soldier, and all things had been arranged in expectation of the landing of the enemy. The first notice was to be given by the firing of a gun from the Castle, and this was to be followed by a chain of signals calculated to arouse the country. The gentleman to whom the dream occurred was a zealous volunteer, and, being in bed between two and three o’clock in the morning, dreamt of hearing the signal gun. He imagined that he went at once to the Castle, witnessed the proceeding for displaying the signals, and saw and heard all the preparations for the assemblage of the troops. At this time he was roused by his wife, who awoke in a fright, in consequence of a similar dream. The origin of both dreams was ascertained in the morning to be the noise produced by the falling of a pair of tongs in the room above.

A gentleman dreamt that he had enlisted as a soldier, joined his regiment, deserted, was apprehended, carried back, condemned to be shot, and at last led out to execution. At this instant a gun was fired, and he awoke, to find that a noise in the adjoining room had both produced the dream and awakened him.

The next is a very extraordinary case.

The subject was an officer in the expedition to Louisburg, in 1758. During his passage in the transport his companions were in the habit of amusing themselves at his expense. They could produce in him any kind of dream by whispering in his ear, especially if this was done by a friend with whose voice he was familiar. Once they conducted him through the whole process of a quarrel which ended in a duel, and when the parties were supposed to have met a pistol was put into his hand, which he fired, and was awakened by the report. On another occasion they found him asleep on the top of a locker in the cabin, when they made him believe he had fallen overboard, and exhorted him to save himself by swimming. Then they told him that a shark was pursuing him, and entreated him to dive for his life. He instantly did so, and with so much force as to throw himself from the locker upon the cabin floor, by which he was much bruised, and awakened of course. After the landing of the army at Louisburg, his friends found him one day asleep in his tent, and evidently much annoyed by the cannonading. They then made him believe that he was engaged, when he exhibited great fear, and showed a decided disposition to run away. Against this they remonstrated, but at the same time increased his fears by imitating the groans of the wounded and the dying; and when he asked, as he often did, who was hit, they named his particular friends. At last they told him that the man next himself in his company had fallen, when he instantly sprang from his bed, rushed out of his tent, and was roused from his danger and his dream by falling over the tent-cords.

A friend informs me that he has a brother who will carry on a conversation with any person who whispers to him in his sleep, and that his emotions are then very readily excited by any pitiful story that may be told him. Upon awaking, he has a distinct recollection of his dreams, which are always connected with the ideas communicated.

I recollect very distinctly the particulars of a dream which I had several years since, and which was due to an impression conveyed to the brain through the ear. The dream also illustrates the point previously brought forward, that a definite conception of time does not enter into the phenomena of dreams.

I dreamed that I had taken passage in a steamboat from St. Louis to New Orleans. Among the passengers was a man who had all the appearance of being very ill with consumption. He looked more like a ghost than a human being, and moved noiselessly among the passengers, noticing no one, though attracting the attention of all. For several days nothing was said between him and any one, till one morning, as we approached Baton Rouge, he came to where I was sitting on the guards and began a conversation by asking me what time it was. I took out my watch, when he instantly took it from my hand and opened it. “I, too, once had a watch,” he said; “but see what I am now.” With these words he threw aside the large cloak he habitually wore, and I saw that his ribs were entirely bare of skin and flesh. He then took my watch, and, inserting it between his ribs, said it would make a very good heart. Continuing his conversation he told me that he had resolved to blow up the vessel the next day, but that as I had been the means of supplying him with a heart he would save my life. “When you hear the whistle blow,” he said, “jump overboard, for in an instant afterward the boat will be in atoms.” I thanked him, and he left me. All that day and the next I endeavored to acquaint my fellow-passengers with the fate in store for them, but discovered that I had lost the faculty of speech. I tried to write, but found that my hands were paralyzed. In fact I could adopt no means to warn them. While I was making these ineffectual efforts, I heard the whistle of the engine; I rushed to the side of the boat to plunge overboard, and awoke. The whistle of a steam saw-mill near my house had just begun to sound, and had awakened me. My whole dream had been excited by it, and could not have occupied more than a few seconds.

The following account[82] shows how a dream may be set in action by the sense of smell.

“On one occasion during my residence at Birmingham I had to attend many patients at Coventry, and for their accommodation I visited that place one day in every week. My temporary residence was at a druggist’s shop in the market-place. Having on one occasion, now to be mentioned, a more than usual number of engagements, I was obliged to remain one night, and a bed was provided for me at the residence of a cheesemonger in the same locality. The house was very old, the rooms very low, and the street very narrow. It was summer-time, and during the day the cheesemaker had unpacked a box or barrel of strong old American cheese; the very street was impregnated with the odor. At night, jaded with my professional labors, I went to my dormitory, which seemed filled with a strong, cheesy atmosphere, which affected my stomach greatly, and quite disturbed the biliary secretions. I tried to produce a more agreeable atmosphere to my olfactory sense by smoking cigars, but did not succeed. At length, worn out with fatigue, I tried to sleep, and should have succeeded, but for a time another source of annoyance prevented me doing so; for in an old wall behind my head, against which my ancient bed stood, there were numerous rats gnawing away in real earnest. The crunching they made was indeed terrific, and I resisted the drowsy god from a dread that these voracious animals would make a forcible entrance, and might take personal liberties with my flesh.

“But at length ‘tired nature’ ultimately so overpowered me that I slept in a sort of fever. I was still breathing the cheesy atmosphere, and this, associated with the marauding rats, so powerfully affected my imagination that a most horrid dream was the consequence. I fancied myself in some barbarous country, where, being charged with a political offense, I was doomed to be incarcerated in a large cheese. And although this curious prison-house seemed most oppressive, it formed but part of my sufferings; for scarcely had I become reconciled to my probable fate than to my horror an army of rats attacked the monster cheese, and soon they seemed to have effected an entrance, and began to fix themselves in numbers upon my naked body. The agony I endured was increased by the seeming impossibility to drive them away, and, fortunately for my sanity, I awoke, but with a hot head and throbbing temples, and a sense of nausea from the extremely strong odor of the cheese.”